After a brief period as Rhodesia in 1979 under an internal settlement between the regime and part of the African opposition movement, the country was returned to British rule at the end of 1979 pending elections which led to legal independence under majority government on 18 April 1980. Since then, under the dictatorial regime of Robert Mugabe, the country has declined economically.

The gross misuse of land, badly-managed resources and misappropriated donor funding (from organisations like the International Monetary Fund) have led the international community to forecast severe famine in the region by mid-2003. The ruling Zanu-PF[?] elite continues with its controversial Land Reform policies, which have caught international attention because white farmers have been targeted. Observers such as the Southern African Bishops Conference[?], Amnesty International, Genocide Watch[?] and others have reported that country is now on the verge of genocide. As former Speaker of Parliament, Didymus Mutasa[?], has put it: "We would be better off with only six million people, with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We don't want all these extra people". The government has been accused of a more subtle genocide by starving areas of opposition support in order to avoid the media interest that resulted from the images that came pouring out of Rwanda, and of withholding grain supplies from AIDS victims, speeding up their deaths and hiding the murder behind AIDS statistics. After a brief period of reconcilation, the government is attempting to exploit tribal and racial differences to gain support for its policies, focussing on the theme of colonial theft by whites of black land as it confiscates farms owned by mainly white farmers. The state-monopoly Grain Marketing Board (GMB) has prohibited the importation of food by private citizens.

However a growing opposition party called the Movement for Democratic change[?] (MDC), led by Morgan Tsvangirai and growing to popular strength has led many people to believe that political change must come, hopefully through democratic process and the restoration of Zimbabwean rule of law. During 2002, the country's much-contested Presidential elections (many Zimbabweans considered Morgan Tsvangirai to be a clear winner) are believed to have been manipulated to deflect the winnings back to the ruling Zanu-PF government.

For the country once considered the bread basket of the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region, the future remains sad and uncertain. The international community believes that political decisions made both overseas and by Zimbabwe's southern-most neighbour South Africa are crucial to the balance of power in this sovereign state. Under the direction of South African President Thabo Mbeki it remains to be seen whether Mbeki's proposed plan for a true African Renaissance will include political freedom and the rule of law within Zimbabwe.